In an era where the world around us is growing more and becoming more “digital” with each passing day, there are many skeptics that don’t understand the advantage direct mail marketing offers. Often times we hear from businesses that they tried direct mail but it didn’t work. After all we are in a digital age that allows you to reach out and make contact with a client as soon as five minutes after they wake up in the morning, how much good can a plastic postcard mailer actually do?
Well they can do a lot! Here are reasons why your direct mail campaign wasn’t successful in the past:
You Focused More About Your Company Than Your Potential Customers
Look at your direct mail or advertising campaigns and evaluate these areas:
- Ratio of Empathy & Authority: Look at each word you choose. Imagine your campaign as a recipe. Authority is the salt. Just a pinch will do. Don’t make your throw your award seals, credentials, etc at your potential customers.
- Photography Messages: Get rid of the stock photos! Instead hire a professional and put clients in your images, using their spaces and living their life to the fullest.
Your Offer Sucks
Lets not beat around the bush, and point out the elephant in the room. If you are going to stand out in a sea of future recycling bin filler, you need to make a few changes to your deal:
- Generous Incentives: If your offer isn’t going to make your competitors nervous, then don’t even offer one. Think about how much you’d pay to acquire a new customer. What is it worth to you now and in the lifetime value of the client? You’re interrupting their life with your promo. Make it worth their while to do something now.
- Urgency: Don’t run the same promo over and over. Give a firm expiration date that isn’t too far out. Your prospects need a fire lit under them.
- Easy Process: People don’t buy the best. They buy what’s easy. When possible, your ad or mailers should show in less than 3 steps how your prospect can go from frustrated to confident and worry-free. Stop over-explaining before the prospect responds.
Marketing to the Wrong Problems
Lawn care and landscaping companies are notorious for marketing to external problems. “Install a patio. Spray your lawn for weeds.”
But your prospects don’t buy because of external problems. They buy because you have used empathy to connect with their internal problems. “I can’t even use my patio to entertain because this patio is so small.” Or…“I’ just wasted my Saturday morning spreading this stuff on my lawn and these weeds are still there!”
Instead you want to identify these internal problems and then subtly connect an external solution to them in your ads and mailers.
You’re Relying on Only One Platform
Next time you’re ready to create a campaign, consider how many ways you can deliver the offer to prospective clients. Instead of only using a print ad or mailer, add at least 2-3 of these as well:
- Facebook ads
- Email marketing
- Calling campaign
- Promotional banner/widget on your website’s homepage
- Digital retargeting ads
- Door hangers/invoice inserts
The more times your prospect sees your promotion, the more likely they will reach out to you. It’s easy to ignore the one postcard that came in the mail. It’s harder to forget when your ad seems to be everywhere they go.
Successful Lawn Care Mailers and Landscaping Advertising Means Doing the Work
Sound like a lot of work? It actually is. But if you want to stop flushing your marketing dollars down the toilet, then it’s a necessary step to make better decisions based on data instead of frustrated gut feelings. Your campaigns could be doing better (or worse) than you think. Contact Dynamicard today!
